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A Report on GSRN’s session at NAAEE ’04 from Mary Ellen Lewis
On November 8, 2004 The Greening Schools Research Network (GSRN) hosted a session at the Annual Conference of the North American Association of Environmental Education (NAAEE) in Biloxi, MI. The session, entitled “Greening Schools Research Network: Opportunities to Collaborate” was facilitated by GSRN member Mary Ellen Lewis, doctoral candidate in Environmental Psychology at the Graduate Center of The City University of New York. The session was attended by Freda Sherburne, Metro and Oregon Green Schools Association in Portland, Oregon; Susie Shields, Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality; Kim Bailey, Georgia Department of Natural Resource’s “Green and Healthy Schools Program”; Duffy Ross, Headlands Institute at The Golden Gate National Park, San
Francisco, CA; Grace Lawrence, North Carolina State University Extension; Linda Cronin Jones, Associate Professor of Science and Environmental Education, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL; Elizabeth Swiman, doctoral student, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL; and Michelle Aldridge, Extension Services, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL.
The small group, hands-on format of this session provided an opportunity for all participants to describe their greening schools environmental education projects, the role of research in their projects and the needs of their projects for further research. Participants also shared strategies for building the research capacities of their organizations and presented individual examples of effective program documentation and research practices in their projects. Though originating from diverse academic and professional perspectives and administered under the auspices of a variety of sectors, the school greening projects represented in this session shared many common issues and all participants expressed the need for research to support their programs.
In the course of this session it was noted that five or ten years ago innovative environmental educators were responding to the need to develop meaningful school greening curriculum and were reaching out to share their curriculum initiatives. Today, the need to produce research results that demonstrate the effectiveness and value of school greening projects provides an impetus for that same kind of ingenuity and collaboration among school greening researchers. In response to this need, the international and interdisciplinary Greening Schools Research Network was established in November 2003 in Toronto, Canada. (See minutes of the Toronto meeting on GSRN’s website).
The session included a discussion of the three main objectives of GSRN in its first year: launching a website, publishing research, participating in conferences. Information on GSRN’s website and listserv was distributed and participants were encouraged to visit the website (http://www.peecworks.org/GSRN.shtml) and join the listserv. GSRN’s initiatives-- such as this conference session-- provide opportunities for anyone interested in greening schools research to share research needs, literature, design
strategies, instruments, analytical approaches and results, and a forum to discuss ideas for continuing the advancement of greening schools research.
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